9 Avengers Fates Worse Than Deaths

2. Becoming A Flesh-Craving Zombie

Age Of Ultron
Marvel Comics

Marvel Zombies is a hugely popular line of comics where our favourite heroes are infected by a virus which turns them into, well, zombies.

The initial 2005 tale and its subsequent spin-offs make for entertaining, engaging reading, but the reality of these stories is an extremely grim one for the characters involved - and amongst those characters are a who's who of the Avengers.

In fact, the Avengers are amongst the very first heroes to be infected as that initial Marvel Zombies tale opens. Set on Earth-2149, readers saw a unnamed, unknown, infected figure crash-land and almost immediately take a bite out of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. That's three pretty heavy hitting hero groups right there, and thus the tone was immediately set for this bonkers story.

What makes the shuffling undead hordes of Marvel Zombies particularly standout from your usual zombies, is that the infected still maintain their core personality. Just, y'know, with their thoughts forever clouded by 'the hunger'. As such, there's still a depressing semblance of consciousness to our infected, flesh-craving heroes in this corner of the wider Marvel Multiverse.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.